Morano Boasts to a US Congressional Hearing of His Disinformation Credentials

Climate Change Misinformer of the Year testifies to US Congressional Hearing - that he is a professional disinformer

The USA is a very strange place.  Americans elect people who deliberately get their information from professional disinformers.  [I think I got that wrong.  Looks as if Morano sent the written testimony off his own bat.] Anthony Watts of WUWT informs us that Marc Morano submitted a pack of lies to a hearing of the United States Congress.  In almost any other place on earth surely lying in testimony to elected representatives would be a criminal offense.  You'd be sent to prison.

Credentials as a Master Liar

Morano starts off by telling the Congressional Hearing he is a professional disinformer by way of listing his professional background as a disinformer.  That takes up quite a few sentences, including boasting about how he was employed to craft disinformation for Senator Inhofe of Oklahoma (very tragic storms passing through there right now.  They are doing it tough after record heat and drought, now tornadoes and severe storms with golf-ball sized hail, rain and floods).

In my capacity as Communications Director for the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee under Senator James Inhofe, I was speech writer and hosted the award-winning U.S. Senate blog. I released the first ever U.S. Government ”Skeptic’s Guide To Debunking Global Warming Alarmism” in 2006. I also authored the 255-page Senate report of over 700 dissenting scientists on man-made global warming originally published in 2007 and updated in 2008, 2009. In 2010, the number of dissenting international scientists exceeded 1000. I am now the publisher of the award-winning Climate Depot and work daily with scientists who examine the latest peer-reviewed studies and data on the climate.

Winner of the Media Matters Award: Climate Change Misinformer of the Year

WTF!  He lists his credentials in lying and producing disinformation propaganda.  He even seems proud of his atrocious record.  Maybe he's cocky because despite telling lies to the US Congress and the world, he's managed to stay out of gaol (so far).  He talks about his 'awards'.  He should have listed his Media Matters Award: Climate Change Misinformer of the Year.

97% Scientists Agree - Humans are Causing Global Waming

Studies consistently show that 97% or more of scientists working in climate science and related fields know it for a fact that humans are causing global warming - based on scientific evidence.  Morano says there are 1000 dissenting scientists.  What he doesn't say is that most of those 'dissenters' are NOT climate scientists.  They don't even work in related fields.  These "dissenters" deny the science for ideological or other unrelated reasons.  His so-called list of "dissenters" is nothing more than a list of crackpots and quacks drawn up by professional disinformers.

Barry Bickmore did a count of the purported "700" and found that a mere handful were authors or contributors to any IPCC document and those that were represented considerably less than 1.3% of all IPCC contributors.  Dr Bickmore went even further and found that the listed "dissenters" represented  less than 1.3% of the lead IPCC authors, less than 0.6% of the contributing authors, and less than 0.6% of the reviewers.  And anyone can be a reviewer - me, you and even a potty peer can nominate himself to be an "expert reviewer".

Not even "interpreting interpretations"

Morano says how he "works daily" with "scientists" to figure out how to attack peer-reviewed literature.  Notice how he doesn't "work daily" with scientists who actually conduct climate research. The people who understand climate science.  Real climate scientists.  Of course not.  No self-respecting scientist would have a bar of Marc Morano.  No, he works with un-named "scientists" to "examine" the studies and data that real scientists produce.  He's probably one in the chain that Delingpole referred to when made his infamous "interpreter of interpretations" comment.

If these faceless 'scientists' tell Morano the facts, then he doesn't take any notice of them, going by the rest of his testimony.  He doesn't summarise the peer-reviewed literature he says he and his "scientists" examine. Instead he goes off on various tangents, quoting retired astronauts who parrot "CO2 is plant food" and the handful of pitiful denier scientists like John Christy who writes one thing in his published work and mouths off the opposite to US Senate Committees.   A scientist by day and a disinformer by night - all while on the government payroll.

The Gish Gallop

Morano presents a science-denying gish gallop, a testimony of lies embroidered with red herrings and half truths, not the other way around.  Way too many to discuss in a blog.  I'll just take a couple to illustrate.

Carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is heating up the planet nuch too quickly

Morano pushes the line that "CO2 was higher in the past" therefore it's not a problem now.  What he doesn't tell the legislators is that the last time CO2 was this high was way before Homo sapiens was a twinkle in earth's evolutionary eye.  Or that when CO2 was twenty times this, no life existed on land at all.  Nor does he tell them that because of human activities, we are entering a period of mass extinction that will likely rival any mass extinction brought about by climate change in the past.  The rate of change easily outpaces the rate of evolution.  The change we're causing may be happening more quickly than at any time since multi-celled organisms first appeared on land.

Sea are rising quickly

Morano talks about sea levels.  This chart from the University of Colorado shows the sea level going up at 3.2 mm a year.

Compare that to previous trends.  Before the twentieth century, the seas didn't rise by more than about 1mm a year (and at times, such as entering the little ice age, was falling).  Over the entire Holocene, sea level has been very stable as was the climate overall.

During the twentieth century sea levels rose at different rates and started accelerating from about 1920 onwards, with some dips and spurts over the decades.  Until the 1980s, the rate of increase didn't exceed about 2.5 mm/year at any time.  In total, seas rose about 16 cm during the 20th century.  Now they are rising at about 3.2 mm a year.  If the rate of rise didn't change from now, then the 20th century increase of 16 cm would be achieved in only 50 years.  However, that's not going to happen.  It's going to be worse than that because of melting glaciers and ice sheets.  Seas are rising at an accelerating rate.

Seas rose by about 16 cm over the entire 20th Century - equivalent to a rate of 1.6 mm a year.  Since the 1990s they have been rising at a rate of 3.2 mm a year. That means that the rise in sea level is accelerating.  The rate of the rise is increasing.  Morano didn't just obfuscate he told a bald-faced lie when he testified: "Sea level rise rates are failing to show the acceleration and have been steady for over a century".  He lied in his testimony to a US Congressional Hearing.

And that's leaving aside the fact that he seems to think that rising sea levels are 'okay'.  Despite the fact that Sandy and Katrina were so much worse because of higher sea levels.



All I can say is, if you read anything by Marc Morano, watch the lie detector go bananas.


PS:  Interesting to note that the Morano piece on WUWT didn't get a lot of traction with WUWT readers.  In fact it was derailed by a reader who was in the path of the current storm raging through Oklahoma City.

PPS: I initially thought that Morano's testimony was invited.  However I can't find any evidence that was the case.  So this was probably a wasted effort because everyone now knows Morano is just another denier crank feeding the 8% Dismissives.  A plain vanilla denialist ranter.